Sorry, been working on finishing up the groundwork for opening the 246/256 to some more usability and haven't had time to pop in recently-
Hoping to get a proper thread up soon with the details of what's going on on my side when things have calmed down.
Anyway- looking through the questions:
- System 256 imho is a better platform as far as compatibility goes- as only a small number of early games for the 246 won't run on it- although many are "iconic" to the system: RRV, BR3, Tekken4...
- As far as the PS2 controller ports, while they are on all 246's and can be added to 256, 256B, and Super 256, MOST games have little or no support for them whatsoever. This was completely elective in the game's programming, and sadly, without dongle hacking, will remain mostly the case. In the meantime, if you need to bench-wire a 2X6, my recommendation is to use a PSX controller adapter wired to the sega model 1 JVS IO pcb.
- Gun games appear to be the most problematic of all games on the 2X6 platform, followed by the touchscreen games. The gun games appear to have at least some cross compatibility, but getting them wired up is an absolute nightmare.
- If a game uses a serial port-based IC card reader, you're likely going to have some "fun" with it, even if you have the guns or touchscreen fully working... I think we may be able to fix this however down the road.
- If you want to run Tekken 4, and don't want to deal with the headaches of finding one of the special drives, use a Tekken 4 Ver. D dongle- this version introduces a new ATA and DVD driver that allows it to work on newer drives, but at currently only works on 246 still, not 256.
- Tekken4 Ver. D's updates appear to be usable in a few other games, but not all 246 games to allow newer DVD drives. Sadly, the early "CD-ROM" games are even further picky about the drives used.
- A number of NEC DVD-ROM drives appear to bridge the gap for game compatibility on all 246 games.
- Making a 256 boot the picky 246 games MAY happen, but not without hacks of the games themselves, and right now, there's a LOT of unknowns owing to the somewhat black box nature of the Namco hardware added to the PCB's
- Of all the gun games, Cobra is MOST playable without the official Namco IO, although the official setup uses a full Time Crisis 4 gun setup, with a really ugly gun. The game is playable via the Analog pins on a sega JVS IO without any specific hardware requirement, but is known to often lock up if the card reader is not detected, and although the "check" can be bypassed, if the game cannot read/write to the hardware at certain times, it will hang.
- Taiko Games are an interesting bunch. The best platform for them is of course the 256. While I have a functional PS2 drum adapter modeled up, It's a bit rudimentary, and should probably be redesigned. Converting the games to accept digital IO is going to be near impossible, but a simple mod could be done to make them accept digital IO on the Analog pins of a JVS pcb. The question here is the design of any such panel or button layout. The game has 4 strike locations per drum (left and right rim, and left and right center). Converting to buttons would still require 4 buttons per "drum". Also, the game can sense strike hardness, but it does not appear to affect the actual gameplay, so digital control may be sufficient. Let me know your thoughts.
-The "Asian" versions of Taiko require a 256 with some specific data in its NVRAM or they will non-boot. thus far I've been able to synthetically add this (directly program the EPROM), but on Taiko 11 and later, adding this will PREVENT japanese versions from workign on the same PCB.
As far as some other developments:
- RRV force feedback IO requirement has been bypassed via dongle hack--More information to follow in another thread, so keep an eye out.
- Wangan Midnight R and Wangan Midnight compatibility is being investigated, but may be more complicated than RRV's owing to a slight change in the 246 Driving PCB used. I'll update once more is known, although I have both games on hand.
- I have identified the location of the "region lock" in Taiko Asian versions, and I believe that it may be possible to bypass it with a dongle hack.
- I have been looking at producing modified versions of a few games that did not receive a translation, or could benefit from certain improvements:
- A translation hack for Zeta and Zeta DX.
- Music replacement for Basara X (both the PS2 and Arcade versions suffer from extremely down sampled audio, even though the CD soundtrack is fine.
- Widescreen hacks for a number of fighting games on the platform
Also, as has been clearly alluded to many times, yes, the universal dongle IS in still in the works (I was hoping to get the first units out the door by Jan 1, but clearly my schedule has slipped), and the prototypes are fully functional thus far.
I'm hoping to get the new PCBs in for them before the end of the month, at which point, preorders will start. Initial run will likely be capped to 50 units, but the product will evolve over time via software support and game hacks as they become available, both from myself and others involved in making this happen!
One final note,
If you are in possession (or know of anyone) of the following games, please let me know:
NM00003 Vampire Night (VPN1 Japanese Language)
NM00016 Zoids Infinity (Must be marked
, not [T])
NM00022 IDMT Idol Master (Tower, not Satellite)
NM00025 Zoids E
EX Plus (Must be marked , not [T])
NM00027 Dragon Ball (DB2 Export Language)
NM00028 Druaga Online (Fully working server PC and/or USB dongle for use with the server)
NM00032 Time Crisis 4 (TSF1001-NA-A Japanese Language)
NM000XX Taiko 12 Asian
NM00057 Taiko 14
.
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